


Stay

by therescuingtype



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-31
Updated: 2014-05-31
Packaged: 2018-01-27 20:25:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1721486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/therescuingtype/pseuds/therescuingtype
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I can get by on my own,” Steve insists. It’s 1936 and they’ve just buried Steve’s mother, next to his father. Bucky wants to grab him by the shoulders, to scream at him to stop being so stubborn, to let him help, let him do something, come stay with him. He bites his tongue.<br/>“The thing is, you don’t have to,” is all he says. Then, with a hand heavily on Steve’s shoulder, he adds, “I’m with you to the end of the line, pal.”<br/>The little punk can’t even find his key, again, but Bucky knows about the spare, of course, he always does, and he retrieves it from under the brick on the porch. When Steve gets the door open he pauses and looks back at Bucky.<br/>Just ask me to stay, punk.<br/>Steve doesn’t.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stay

It’s 1927, summer, and it’s hot in Brooklyn. The neighbourhood boys play games in the street, mostly of their own invention, and they never quite agree on the rules they made up. They argue over everything, from what the game is even called to who gets to be on Bucky’s team. Bucky, age 10, is strong and fast and he almost always wins. About the only thing they agree on is that nobody wants Steve to play. Steve is 9, but he looks more like he’s 6. He’s small and weak and no one wants to be on his team, so he sits on the curb with a ratty old sketchbook and a pencil worn down to its nub and draws. Maybe he’s drawing the boys playing, maybe he’s creating his own world. Most of the boys don’t care. Almost all of them, in fact, except Bucky.  
    “Hey. Whatcha drawing?” he asks. Steve looks up, startled. He’s in the shadow of the much taller boy who’s looking down at him, his hands on his hips. Steve didn’t notice the street emptying out, most of the other boys going home for dinner, the sun sinking slowly behind the buildings. He studies the boy in front of him, looking for any trace of cruelty, wondering if he would tear the page in two or throw it in the dirt. But he smiles, the little half-smile that always got him his way with both his parents and the other kids, and there isn’t a hint of cruelty in his eager eyes. He sits next to Steve on the curb and gently takes the sketchbook when it’s offered to him, carefully turning the pages and listening while Steve describes the world sketched sloppily onto each. He’s not good at this, not yet, but Bucky listens. Maybe he’s humouring the kid, or maybe he’s genuinely enthralled, Steve isn’t sure, but it’s the first time one of the neighbourhood boys has been this nice to him, and he isn’t eager for it to end.  
    “Steven Rogers!” comes a familiar voice, sharp with both anger and worry. Steve and Bucky look up, and Steve feels his face flush when he sees his mother striding toward them. “Do you have any idea what time it is?”  
    It’s only then that Steve realizes it’s completely dark.   
    “Sorry, I--” Steve starts.  
    “It’s my fault. I wanted to see what he was drawin’,” Bucky cuts in. He stands, extends his hand to Steve’s mother, and smiles broadly. “James Buchanan Barnes. Pleased to meet you.”  
    “Barnes,” Mrs. Rogers says, narrowing her eyes and not shaking his hand. “Yes, I’ve heard about you. Come along, Steve, it’s getting cold out.”  
    It isn’t, but Steve stands and collects his sketchbook with a quick, apologetic look at a crestfallen Bucky.  
    “Aw, can’t he stay?” Bucky asks.  
    Mrs. Rogers sighs. “I’m afraid not. Let’s go, Steve.”  
  
    That fall, Bucky teaches him how to fight. He does it out of necessity, because the kid keeps getting into fights and he won’t just run away, so he might as well learn to stand a fighting chance. He’s not very good at it, he’s still smaller than the other boys in his class, but he learns to hold his own until Bucky gets there. And he’s never very far away, because they’re never very far apart anymore.  
    They’re sitting in the principal’s office, Steve with a bloodied nose, Bucky with a black eye, but the other boy much worse off, Bucky promises.   
    Bucky’s father gets there first. He storms into the office, his expression livid, and grabs Bucky by his shirt collar.  
    “Really, James, _another_ fight?” he barks. Bucky’s typical bravado crumbles. HIs shoulders slump and he looks at his feet, as if he knows speaking up, explaining that he was only defending Steve, will make it worse for him. He trudges out after his father, who is still ranting about what a delinquent he’s turning into. He looks up only briefly when Steve reaches for his hand, and he smiles.  
    Later, at home, Steve’s mom gently cleans the dried blood from his face and gives him ice to press to his swollen nose. She fusses over him as she always does, but this time he’s not as annoyed. He doesn’t expect that anyone is fussing over Bucky right now.  
    “I told you that Barnes boy was trouble,” she says.  
    “It wasn’t his fault,” Steve says quietly. Mrs. Rogers clicks her tongue in response.  
    “Still. You should stay away from him.”  
  
    In the winter, Steve gets sick. He always does when it’s cold, but it’s worse this time. He’s out of school for weeks with a high fever that has him bed-ridden and delirious when he isn’t asleep. Bucky drops by after school every day, but Steve’s mom doesn’t let him in.  
    “He’s contagious,” she says. She looks weary and sad and worried. “And he needs his rest.”  
    “I can be real quiet,” Bucky pleads, looking up at her with his eyes wide and sad. He’s just about mastered that look, and it will serve him well throughout his life. It doesn’t work on Mrs. Rogers.  
    But Bucky Barnes is persistent, and he still comes every day. Even when he’s turned away, he climbs the icy metal fire escape and sits under Steve’s window. It’s cold out there and he can’t stop himself shivering, but he can hear Mrs. Rogers through the window. It must be thin. Steve must be cold in there. Sometimes she sings her ailing boy songs, her voice gentle and loving. Other times, she talks to him, tells him stories about his father, about how he fought bravely in the Great War, how he died a hero, how he would have been so proud of Steve.  
    Bucky likes to think he would’ve been proud of him, too.  
    When his joints hurt from the cold, he decides to go. It’s dark, and he’s hungry, and he can’t feel his hands. He creeps out from under the window but slips, falling with such a clatter he’s not surprised when the window above him slams open and Mrs. Rogers pokes her head out. She looks furious at first, but when she looks down and sees him sprawled on her fire escape, his lips blue and his ears probably frostbitten, her face softens.  
    “Bucky,” she says gently. “Bucky, come inside.”   
    She helps him through the window and gets him an extra blanket.   
    “You must really care for my son,” she says gently, wrapping the blanket around him and rubbing warmth back into his shoulders. “To sit out there in the cold.”  
    “Yes ma’am,” Bucky answers, his lips still shaking. “He’s my best friend.”  
    She smiles at him. “Don’t your parents wonder where you are?”  
    “No, ma’am,” Bucky responds. “My mother works at night, at the hospital. Dad doesn’t mind me staying out late.”  
    She’s almost sure he’s lying, but he’s bold about it, looking braver than he is. She’s heard about James Barnes, Sr., she has ideas why his boy might rather be known by his middle name. But she knows about Bucky, too, about his rough-and-tumble reputation. She doesn’t think he’s good for a boy as fragile as her Steve, but she doesn’t have the heart to turn him away now. So she brings in the couch cushions from the den and lays them out on the floor by Steve’s bed. She makes him promise to get her if Steve needs anything during the night, and then she goes to bed.   
    Bucky doesn’t sleep on the cushions on the floor. Steve is shivering, so Bucky crawls under the covers with him, wraps his arms around the thin frame, and hugs him tight.  
    When Bucky wakes up the next morning, he knows he should settle onto the cushions, in case Steve’s mom comes in. But when he sits up Steve grabs his hand; his palm is slick with sweat, his blonde hair dark and matted to his forehead. Even though he’s burning up he’s freezing, and Bucky is so warm.  
    “Stay,” he says weakly.  
    Bucky stays.      
  
    Bucky graduates in 1935, and his parents practically insist that he goes to college. Because they didn’t, because he’s _smart_ when he just _applies himself_ (Bucky graduates third in his class but he tells no one, except Steve) and because they can afford it. He gets in everywhere he applies, because things like that always come easy to Bucky. He chooses Columbia, because it’s prestigious enough to make his parents happy and close enough that he doesn’t have to leave Steve, not really.   
    The night before he moves into the dorm Bucky spends the night at Steve’s. Mrs. Rogers has grown accustomed to Bucky’s constant presence, and she doesn’t question how often he sleeps over. Still, they’re quiet about it, which is a feat in itself since Steve has come a long way from that first time a year ago when they were both awkward and unsure what to even do but Bucky just knew it was _so fucking hot_ when Steve, gentle little 90 pound Steve, took control. He liked the featherweight of Steve on top of him, liked feeling Steve move inside him, liked feeling Steve’s skin against his, slick with sweat, when he collapsed onto him afterwards.  
    “Manhattan’s still pretty far, though,” Steve bemoans, kissing Bucky’s collarbone, his tongue playing across a particularly sensitive spot on his neck. Bucky sucks in his breath. It’s not fair for Steve to do that to him when he has to leave in the morning.  
    “You can come visit on weekends,” Bucky promises. “In fact, you better.”  
    “Why don’t you just stay,” Steve suggests.  
    Bucky doesn’t, but it turns out Columbia isn’t for him anyway. He’s not the brilliant, beautiful boy with a disarming gaze and a self-satisfied smile. He’s one of many, he blends in, and he’s lonely. He tells himself the reason he doesn’t go back after Christmas is because of the dark circles under Steve’s eye and the sadness in his voice when he tells him his mother is sick, and she’s probably not getting better. He stays.  
  
    “I can get by on my own,” Steve insists. It’s 1936 and they’ve just buried Steve’s mother, next to his father. Bucky wants to grab him by the shoulders, to scream at him to stop being so stubborn, to let him help, let him do something, come stay with him. He bites his tongue.  
    “The thing is, you don’t have to,” is all he says. Then, with a hand heavily on Steve’s shoulder, he adds, “I’m with you to the end of the line, pal.”  
    The little punk can’t even find his key, again, but Bucky knows about the spare, of course, he always does, and he retrieves it from under the brick on the porch. When Steve gets the door open he pauses and looks back at Bucky.  
     _Just ask me to stay, punk._  
    Steve doesn’t.  
  
    They don’t talk for weeks. Bucky certainly won’t break the silence first; he’s got pride, after all. But he misses Steve, misses the way he fits just right in the crook of his arm, misses the way he always smiles absently when he’s drawing, misses the way his lips are always impossibly soft. He’s taken to glancing down every alley he walks by, because he knows Steve won’t change, knows he still won’t run away from a fight, and knows he’ll get himself in one eventually.  
    He’s right.  
    It’s behind a diner this time, and Bucky hears the commotion before he sees it. He can’t imagine what the 6’0” beast of a man currently pounding Steve’s face in could have done to spark Steve’s wrath: probably said something inappropriate to a waitress, or something.  
    Bucky pulls the guy off Steve easily and hurls him backwards against a trash can. He kicks him once in the ribs, tells him to get out of here, the little guy didn’t come alone after all. When he’s gone, he turns to help Steve up. Steve refuses his help and scrambles to his feet himself.  
    “I had him,” he insists.  
    “I know you did,” Bucky nods.   
    Steve smiles in spite of himself and looks down to hide it. Bucky brushes a strand of hair from Steve’s forehead and smiles back. Steve melts against him, hugging him so fiercely it catches Bucky off guard.  
    “Don’t leave me alone for so long again,” he says.  
    Bucky hugs him tight and kisses the top of his head. “I won’t.”  
  
    Bucky joins the army in 1942. He doesn’t really want to, but with his dad insisting he do something with his life, with the whole country raging about Pearl Harbor, and eventually with Steve’s burning passion for the whole thing eventually catching a fire in him, he does. Besides, maybe if he goes, that’ll be enough for Steve. Maybe he’ll stop trying to enlist himself.  
    “You get your orders?” Steve asks, after Bucky breaks up yet another back alley fight for him.  
    “The 107th,” Bucky says, his head tilting to one side, the self-satisfied smirk firmly planted on his face. That was Steve’s dad’s unit. They both know it well. Bucky wants Steve to say he’d be proud, he’d think of Bucky as a son, too. He doesn’t.   
    That night they go to the Modern Marvels Pavilion, even though Steve would rather spend the last night before Bucky ships out with, well, Bucky. Alone. But one of the guys in Bucky’s unit told him about a friend of his girl’s who was visiting with her sister, and maybe Bucky would like to meet her, and by the way did he have a friend for the sister? Bucky had a pretense to keep up, so of course he had a friend.    The whole set-up is a disaster, from Steve’s girl not really being interested to Bucky having eyes for no one but Steve anyway to Steve sneaking off to try and enlist again.  
    But Bucky has a pretense to keep up, so he hugs Steve goodbye hours earlier than he wants to.  
     _Don’t go_ , Steve almost says, but that’s not really what he means. He’s happy for Bucky, proud that he’s standing up for what’s right and going to fight overseas. But he’s worried, about Bucky’s safety and about being apart again, and he’s jealous because he’s not sure he’ll get to go too, but he has to keep trying. _Don’t go without me_ , is more along the lines of what he means.  
      
    “James Buchanan Barnes. Sergeant. Three-two-five-five-seven--” That’s the next time Steve hears Bucky’s voice, more than a year later, in 1943. It’s weak and cracking and barely audible at all and it feels like a knife in his heart. But Bucky’s alive when everyone told him he wouldn’t be, and Steve is sure Howard Stark can undo whatever they’ve done to him.  
    Bucky crosses what’s left of the bridge on unsteady legs with poison in his veins. He’s so close to freedom but it collapses. There’s a chasm of fire between him and Steve.  
    “Go! Get out of here!” Steve yells to him.   
    “No, not without you!” he yells back. He’s angry, because Steve knows better. Steve knew in 1927, when he was a skinny, sick nine-year-old curled up against Bucky and asking him to stay, that he would. He knew in ’35 that Bucky wouldn’t - couldn’t - actually stay away too long at college. He knew in ’36 that Bucky wouldn’t abandon him no matter how hard he pushed, and he should know now that Bucky won’t leave him to die on his own. But maybe he does, and maybe that’s the only thing that saves Steve that day.  
  
    “We don’t have to,” Steve says. They sit on Steve’s bed, Bucky taking in this new, bigger, stronger Steve he still can’t figure out; Steve tracing his fingers over the scars on Bucky’s bare chest. Since they marched back into the camp, Bucky has been dodging questions about them, and about what exactly Zola did, saying he was delirious, he can’t remember. Whatever it was, it wasn’t lethal, Howard assured them, and that was that.  
    “I want to,” Bucky insists. He pulls Steve to him and kisses him with such intensity that Steve forgets where they are for a second, forgets there’s a war raging around them, but remembers how close he was to never having this again. He kisses back, just as fiercely.   
    The truth is that he needs to lose himself in Steve, to pretend for just a moment that they’re back home in Brooklyn, together and safe and whole, to forget the needles and probing, the days without food or sleep, the way Zola looked when he told him to “be quiet, stop screaming or I will kill your friends,” promised him he would be a super soldier - though he’d picked up enough German to know that the word Zola used with the other doctors in the room meant _weapon_ , not soldier. But he doesn’t tell Steve about any of that.  
    “It’s been more than a year,” he says instead, laying back and pressing his hips up into Steve’s. “I fucking missed you.”  
    Steve kisses him quickly and swallows the gentle mewling that escapes his lips.   
  
    He can’t sleep afterwards, though Steve passes out almost immediately, his head on Bucky’s chest, listening to his steady heartbeat, already so much stronger than it was this afternoon. His head is clearer too, but he still can’t get his mind around the fact that Steve is so much bigger now that he must look ridiculous curled against his side like he always has, arms wrapped tightly around him, a desperate grip on someone who almost slipped away.  
    Bucky lies awake, his fingers idly tracing over the muscles on Steve’s arm, thinking about this super soldier thing. Was it like Zola’s? Did it hurt? Did they hurt Steve when they turned him into this, and would he have been able to stop it? It must have, and he would have. He would fight tooth and nail, he would lay down his life, to stop anyone hurting Steve.  
    Maybe that’s why he volunteers for the Howling Commandos.  
  
    The first night after Bucky falls, Steve doesn’t sleep at all. It’s too quiet without Bucky muttering in his sleep. Steve knows it was almost always nightmares about HYDRA’s torture even though Bucky would never talk about them, but he misses it anyhow. The second night, sheer exhaustion overtakes him and he sleeps, but not for long. All he can see when he closes his eyes is Bucky, his arm still outstretched to him, falling into nothing, only in the dream he never disappears, he just keeps falling. The third night, he sits up with Peggy going over new intel about a possible HYDRA base in Switzerland. On the fourth night, he has purpose. A mission. HYDRA tore Bucky away from him, and now he has the means to destroy them. The fifth night after the fall is spent going over the plan with the rest of the Commandos. They watch him nervously. He’s too passionate, too invested. Nobody wants to point out that the exit plan is unclear. Nobody wants to point out that Steve might not _have_ one.  
    The sixth night after Bucky’s fall, Steve sleeps a death-like sleep below the ice, cold and alone and feeling nothing.  
  
    He doesn’t really remember the fall. Or, rather, he doesn’t remember hitting the ground. He remembers being blasted out the side of the train. He remembers Steve reaching for him, trying to pull him in. He remembers the cold he felt after. He remembers, in a hazy sort of dream way, being dragged through the snow. He remembers the bloody trail left by the mangled stump where his left arm should have been. He doesn’t remember it hurting, not then.   
    He doesn’t remember how long he lay strapped on the table. He remembers opening his eyes to Zola standing over him and for an instant he wonders if he ever left, if Steve rescuing him had been a dream. Maybe it was. Maybe Steve is back home in Brooklyn, small and weak as ever but _safe_. That would be all right, he thinks, even if he won’t make it back there himself.  
    “So nice to have you back with us,” Zola says. Bucky wants to lash out, to strangle Zola, but he’s strapped down so tight and he doesn’t have the strength anyway. He screams.  
    “There is no use fighting it, Sergeant Barnes,” Zola says with a sick smile on his face. “You will become the greatest weapon HYDRA has ever had. You will be the future.”  
  
    When he wakes up again, he can’t feel the restraints on his right arm. But he can feel his left arm, feel the weight of _something_ there, something that shouldn’t be. It was gone, he remembers the bloody stump, even remembered the bone saw as HYDRA doctors removed what was left - without anesthesia. But something is there now. He lifts both arms and sees his right hand, flesh-and-bone and intact, but his left is made of metal. It turns and moves and grips like a hand but it isn’t. He passes out again.  
    Bucky holds out better than Zola thought he would. He won’t let go of the memories. He keeps repeating his name, rank, and serial number. He keeps muttering _Steve_ under his breath. They cannot wipe him if he refuses to let go.  
    And then, one day, it happens. A radio in the corner of the lab catches Bucky’s ear. He knows just enough German to pick up what they’re saying, and even when he doubts it, Zola’s face lights up with a perverse joy that confirms it for him. Captain America is missing and presumed dead.      
    “You hear that, Sergeant Barnes?” Zola asks, leaning in close to Bucky’s ear. “Your friend is not coming to save you this time.”  
    “No!” Bucky screams, tears - the first since he’s been here - stinging his eyes.  
    “Yes,” Zola repeats. “Yes, his plane went down in the ocean. The greatest American hero is no more.”  
    “No,” Bucky repeats, weaker now. “Steve...”  
    “Now now, Sergeant Barnes,” Zola says. “I know that he was your friend. That is why you are so, so important to us. Wouldn’t you like to get revenge on the people responsible for his death?”  
    “You are,” Bucky hissed.  
    “No, not HYDRA, Barnes,” Zola snaps. “The ones who made him a weapon in the first place. Your gentle friend, turned into a killing machine, and dying for something so much bigger than himself. He was never going to win, Sergeant Barnes. He was never going to stop HYDRA. Cut off one head and two more shall take its place. You can be one of us. Surrender now and your pain will end. You will be strong again.”  
    His chest feels so tight he can’t breathe. Steve is dead, and he wants to be, too. So he gives in, and in a way it is a kind of death, to have his memories and life, his identity and his very humanity taken from him.  
    But Steve did not stay. Why should he?  
  
    After that there’s nothing, not for a very long time. Each time The Winter Soldier is woken up, he’s born anew with nothing but his new mission to drive him. He’s a ghost with no past and no future.  
    Until a mission brings him to Washington, DC.   
    It’s 2014. He thinks. Time doesn’t make sense; sometimes when he comes out of cryo it’s been three years, sometimes it’s been twelve. Sometimes he feels a loss, a hollowness in his chest, like something is missing, but he has a job to do and when it’s over it’s back into cryo before he can figure out what it is.   
    This time the mission gets complicated. The target eludes him the first time, but there is no escaping The Winter Soldier for long. He tracks the target - Nick Fury, director of SHIELD - to a small apartment complex. From there it’s easy: a single shot through the window and it’s done.  
    He doesn’t expect pursuit. But the blond man, the resident of the apartment, gives chase. The shield he carries sparks something in The Winter Soldier. A memory? No. He’s heard about this man before. Captain America, the greatest American hero.  
    On the rooftop, the Captain nearly catches him. He throws the shield. Of course, that’s his move. It’s predictable. The Winter Soldier catches it easily with his metal arm. The Captain is unarmed. This should be easy. Another single shot and it would be done.  
    Instead, he throws the shield back.  
    Because the Captain is unarmed.  
  
    “That man on the bridge. Who was he?” The Winter Soldier asks, his face contorting as he tugs at a memory that won’t come loose. He saw the Captain again. This time, he’d called him Bucky. The Winter Soldier isn’t sure what that means, but he knows it means something. Something is nagging at the back of his mind. Recognition. Memory. A feeling, an absence.  
    He looks up at Pierce, the only face in the room he can recognize. It’s one of the first faces he sees when they bring him out of cryo. It’s the face that gives him his directives, that greets him, praises him when he finishes a mission. It’s the closest The Winter Soldier ever comes to trusting anyone.  
    “You met him earlier this week on another assignment,” Pierce answers.  
    That isn’t good enough for The Winter Soldier, because he knows it’s a lie.   
     _Tell me. Please tell me. I know you know,_ he wants to plead. But he can’t. It’s not in his programming to speak against Alexander Pierce. Pierce would tell him if he needed to know.  
    “But I knew him,” is all he says, meekly.  
  
    The mission is easy: kill Captain America. Make sure Insight launches without incident. Pierce tells him he’s done it dozens of times before, but he can’t remember. Why is he never allowed to remember? He remembers, in fragments, the wipes and the reprogramming. He remembers that it hurts, he can hear himself scream - Pierce can hear him scream, and still he walks away.   
    But the Captain wants him to remember, even if it’s something he can’t. The Captain gives him a name he doesn’t know. There’s an expectation, an identity attached to it that he doesn’t understand, but it’s a name, and that’s more than he ever got from Alexander Pierce.  
    He has a clear shot as the Captain rushes to replace the Insight targeting blade. He can complete his mission. He can end this. There’s a screaming in his head, like someone else trying to break through. Before him he sees the Captain, in perfect range, vulnerable and exposed, but he sees something else: he sees an alley in a city he doesn’t recognize, a small skinny boy in a fight he can’t win. He sees a snowy mountain range and the small skinny boy, bigger now, with a gun trained on him that he doesn’t see. Before him is his mission, and the boy he’s always had to protect. If he finishes his mission, that boy dies. If he doesn’t, the helicarrier crashes and, chances are, they both die.  
    He shoots. But it isn’t a shot to kill. There’s another flash, maybe a memory, maybe a dream, of a red-headed woman stealing away with another target of his. He can get them both. But it isn’t her he’s after. So he shoots just once to hit them both, but not to kill her. When he shoots The Captain, it’s only meant to stop him. And it doesn’t.  
    The Captain finishes his mission before he falls. The Winter Soldier watches, the Captain’s final words still echoing in his hollow brain.  
    “I’m with you. ‘Til the end of the line.”  
    He’s sure those words are a part of his past. He needs to know how. That’s why he pulls the Captain from the water. The Captain, broken and battered and half drowned because of him. He sees the Captain’s chest rise and fall; he’ll survive. But no one survives long with The Winter Soldier around.  
    “Stay,” Steve breathes. He won’t remember saying it later; he’s not even really conscious. But he says it. Weak, but clear.  
    The Winter Soldier doesn’t stay.  
  
    The next time he sees Steve Rogers, he can recite almost all the facts of their lives from memory; at least the ones on display at the Smithsonian. He knows Steve Rogers and James Buchanan “Bucky” Barnes were inseparable, both in the schoolyard and on the battlefield. He knows all about the Super Soldier serum that transformed Steve Rogers into Captain America, and that Bucky Barnes was the only member of the Howling Commandoes to die in combat. He knows Bucky Barnes’ date of birth, date of death, weight and height like the back of his hand, but he doesn’t recognize any of these facts as being about _him._   
    And yet he finds himself on the rooftop across from Steve’s apartment night after night, the same rooftop he shot Nick Fury from. Steve never moved, even with the possibility of HYDRA coming after him. Maybe he isn’t afraid of that. Or maybe he knows it’s where Bucky would come looking.   
    The Winter Soldier does his best to make sure he’s never seen, but it obviously isn’t enough: he discovers one night that Steve has left the window open. Not open a crack, like he’d opened it for some fresh air and forgotten, but wide open, as if inviting something in. Steve is often reckless but rarely so careless; The Winter Soldier knows that the gesture is an invitation. He knows he’s been seen. He’s slipping.  
    He slips in easily through the window, landing with the cat-like grace that makes him so deadly to his targets. They never hear him coming. But Steve Rogers has never been like his other targets.  
    “Hey, pal,” comes a voice from the darkness. The Winter Soldier stands quickly and draws his side arm. He can just make out the silhouette sitting on a stool behind the counter that separates the kitchen from the living room in the small apartment. “We both know you’re not gonna shoot me, Buck. I’m gonna turn a light on, okay?”  
    The Winter Soldier keeps his gun trained on the silhouette as it moves slowly across the kitchen and flicks on the switch. Bathed in light, Steve makes his way back to his seat. The Winter Soldier lowers his gun; the most threatening thing about Steve Rogers right now is the steaming mug in his hand. An identical one sits across the counter from him. An offering.   
    “Why’d you come here?” Steve asks.  
    The Winter Soldier looks at him appraisingly. He doesn’t get asked questions. He gets asked for reports. He gets asked things of which there are specific answers. If he can’t give the right one it ends in pain. He doesn’t know what to say here. He swallows hard.  
    “You knew I would.”  
    Steve nods. “But why did you?”   
    The Winter Soldier folds his right arm across his chest, his hand idly rubbing the metal plating on his left shoulder. His eyes scan the apartment, taking in bits and pieces. It’s sparsely decorated, and clean, but it looks lived in. It is a home. Their stories aren’t all that different. They’re both soldiers. Both trained to kill, both weapons for something beyond their control. But when Steve woke up lost in a borrowed future he was given a life. The Winter Soldier was kept in a cage.   
    “I-I don’t have anywhere else to go,” The Winter Soldier says.   
    In spite of everything, Steve smiles. He stands and moves slowly around the counter. He approaches carefully with his hands held in front of him and in full view. The Winter Soldier grips his gun tight but keeps it at his side.   
    “You can always come here,” Steve says.   
    He’s inches from The Winter Soldier now and slowly reaches out, gently brushing his fingers along The Winter Soldier’s cheek. He bites his lip, trying to suppress the grin threatening to break through and not quite succeeding. But The Winter Soldier jerks away, violently swatting Steve’s hand back. He glares at him through burning eyes, expecting retaliation. Expecting punishment.  
    “Bucky--” Steve starts.  
    “Don’t call me that!” the Winter Soldier growls suddenly. His grip tightens on his gun - his finger on the trigger.  
    “I’m sorry,” Steve says, drawing back. “That’s the only name I’ve ever called you.”  
    “I’m not him,” The Winter Soldier insists. He’s breathing heavily, his chest heaving like he can’t get enough air into his lungs.   
    “You are,” Steve insists foolishly. “You just don’t remember--”  
    “I’m not!” the Winter Solder roars. He raises his gun again and Steve takes another step back when it’s trained on him.  
    “Whoa, whoa,” he says, holding his hands up in front of him. “I’m sorry.”  
    The Winter Soldier’s eyes dart around the apartment wildly as if looking out for an ambush. They land on the open window and he holsters his gun.  
    “Bucky please don’t,” Steve says, then curses himself. He can’t stop. It’s the only name he has, even if this isn’t really his Bucky.   
    The Winter Soldier is already at the window.   
    “Stay,” Steve pleads.  
    The Winter Soldier doesn’t.  
  
    It takes another string of long nights by the open window with two mugs of hot cocoa, but it pays off. The nights are getting colder in DC and wherever the Winter Soldier has been sleeping - Steve doesn’t let himself think about it too long - is not nearly as inviting as his apartment.   
    He’s about to give up. He stands and picks up both mugs of cocoa. He turns to the sink and he’s about to pour them out when he hears a soft thud behind him, the sound of boots landing on hardwood floors. He turns, knowing it can only be Bucky, but the state of him nearly makes him drop both mugs.  
    The Winter Soldier is pale, with dark circles under his eyes. His cheekbones look a little sharper and his clothes are tattered. But in his eyes Steve is sure he sees Bucky, more than ever before, screaming to break through.  
    “You’re back,” Steve says. He sets the mugs back down on the counter and pushes one across to his guest.  
    “I need your help,” the Winter Soldier says. He crosses the small space from the window to the counter and picks up the mug, wrapping his right hand around it. His left, Steve notices, is balled into a fist and held stiffly to his side.   
    “I’ve been waiting for you to come back.”  
    “I know.”   
    “Tell me what I can do.”  
    The Winter Soldier stares down into his cocoa. It’s barely warm anymore, but what heat is left warms his wind-burned face. “I can’t-I can’t stop...”  
    He trails off and Steve notices he’s balling and unballing his metal fist.   
    “I don’t want to keep hurting people,” he says at last.   
    Steve leans over the counter and very slowly lays his hand on Bucky’s wrist. He looks him in the eye and doesn’t ask what Bucky fears: _who have you hurt? What have you done?_   
    “Hey, listen to me,” he says instead. “That’s good. Okay? That’s a good start.”  
    Bucky holds his gaze and slowly sets down his cocoa. He grips the edge of the counter with both hands. His shoulders slump forward, his head drops, and if the white-knuckle grip of his right hand is anything to go by Steve worries his left may tear a chunk straight out of the marble top.  
    “I need you...” he says slowly. “To help me remember.”  
    “Okay, Buck,” Steve says. The Winter Soldier’s head snaps up and he glares at Steve with wildfire in his eyes. “Look, that’s what I’ve always called you. If you want to remember, I need to say your name.”  
    His eyes soften. Bucky returns. Steve carefully runs his hands up Bucky’s arms, the cold metal chilling his fingers, and clamps them behind his neck. He leans forward across the counter and presses his head to Bucky’s.   
    “Stay this time, okay? Just stay.”  
    Steve kisses him softly and feels Bucky’s hands on his shoulders, pushing him back.  
    Again, The Winter Soldier doesn’t stay.  
  
    The next time, he doesn’t return until Steve is about to give up. He leaves a sweater draped over the back of the couch because it’s gotten even colder with winter on the way, and he’s about to close the bedroom door behind him when he hears a familiar voice.  
    “Hey, punk,” it says. He whirls around and there’s Bucky. His face is half-obscured by months of untamed beard growth and missing the crooked, self-satisfied smile that always accompanied that particular pet name, but it’s Bucky all the same.   
    “Jerk,” Steve says, and he can’t contain his grin.   
    He has to slouch, curl his shoulders in, but he still fits against Bucky the way he did before the serum.  
    “You remember. How? And how much?”  
    Bucky tilts Steve’s face toward his and silences him with a kiss. He kisses hard and hungrily, as if trying to swallow Steve’s questions.  
   _I remember you,_ it’s meant to say. _Let that be enough for now._  
    For now, it’s enough.  
  
    They still fit together in every way imaginable like no time has passed. It comes naturally to Bucky, the way few things do these days. It’s as if his fingers - on his right hand, anyway - never forgot the feel of Steve’s skin or the curve of his hip. His body remembers this, craves this, needs it. It’s Steve who moves gently, lets Bucky lead him backwards to the couch, lets Bucky undress them both (his metal arm is incredibly agile;  there’s something about seeing it this close, seeing it do something other than destroy, that spurs Steve on), lets Bucky push him back onto the couch. He’s careful as Bucky lowers himself onto him, cautious not to startle him. He wraps his arms around Bucky’s waist, a hand pressed flat against his spine, feeling it move as Bucky writhes on him. Bucky’s breathing turns into a shallow pant and he bends down, grinding roughly on Steve, kissing him again. He bites Steve’s lip, turning his moan into a hiss. It spurs Steve into action and he thrusts harder into Bucky, gripping his hips, nails digging into flesh.   
    It’s like no time has passed between them. It’s like there was never a war, never any hurt or torture, never any loss. It feels like it’s always been this way, just the two of them in the whole world with no beginning and no end. Afterwards they lay basking in the afterglow, both of them slick with sweat, Bucky curled against Steve’s side. Steve’s arm is draped around Bucky’s shoulders, his fingers idly tracing the red star on the cool metal surface of his left arm.   
    “Bucky,” Steve says, after a long silence. He should have left it alone. He knows Bucky was very nearly asleep by the way he groans and groggily shakes the hair from his eyes. He should have let him sleep. “You know I have to ask. Your memory... when’d it come back?”  
    Bucky sits up, pulling away from Steve.  
    “It’s not back yet,” he answers. “Not all the way. But it’s coming, in bits and pieces.”  
    He doesn’t tell Steve that he still goes to the Smithsonian exhibit, searches it for answers he’s missed. He doesn’t tell Steve that he’s read every account he can find on Captain America, from his creation through the Howling Commandos, from his crash through his return, and even about New York, about Iron Man and Thor and the rest. That way, he doesn’t have to tell Steve that he doesn’t remember, not all of it anyway. He remembers in flashes. He remembers Steve’s voice here or a mission with the Commandos there.  
    He barely remembers Brooklyn. He can’t remember his parents’ faces but he remembers Steve, small and weak and always looking at him longingly, expectantly. The way he is right now.  
    He certainly doesn’t tell Steve that’s why he’s here now, because it seems so important to Steve. He’s here because Steve needs him, and what he can tell from everything he’s read and the little he remembers is that that’s always been the guiding force of his life.   
    “Will you tell me... what you do remember?” Steve asks, and immediately regrets it. He feels Bucky stiffen against him - he swears he feels Bucky slip away entirely. It’s The Winter Soldier who stands up, The Winter Soldier who dresses quickly and clumsily.  
    “I can’t,” he says. “I have to go.”  
    “Bucky, don’t,” Steve says, gripping his metal wrist. The Winter Soldier wrenches it away. “Stay.”  
    He doesn’t.  
    But he takes the sweater Steve left out for him.  
  
    And so it becomes a pattern: Bucky comes, more and more frequently, but he doesn’t stay. Each night he slips in, each night Steve is waiting. And every night Steve swears there’s a little more of the old Bucky in his eyes. They look darker and haunted, but they’re Bucky’s nonetheless. But every time, something sets him off and he goes. One night it’s when Steve asks where he’s sleeping these days. Another, it’s when idly mentions Brooklyn and how much it’s changed, how Bucky should see the old neighbourhood now. The last time, before Steve learns to keep his mouth shut, what sets Bucky off is when Steve asks why they do this, why Bucky even comes to him.  
    Bucky never tells him that he craves it when he’s away. He craves the touch of Steve’s skin warm against his, craves the way their bodies move fluidly together. Most of all he craves the blissful quiet in his mind when they’re together. And then afterwards, when all he wants to do is lay there and listen to Steve breathe beside him and maybe sleep, properly for once, Steve opens his mouth. It doesn’t matter what he asks. All of it is a reminder of something Bucky can’t remember no matter how hard he tries, or something he’d even face HYDRA’s machines again to forget. He’s reminded of the death and destruction he’s caused, and all of the pain he has yet to cause. That’s about when the apartment starts to feel too small, the room too hot, and he has to get out.  
    He never tells Steve that the memories come in fits and starts, and it’s always kickstarted by that one word he says every time he goes.  
     _Stay._  
  
    Neither one sleeps. Bucky’s mind won’t slow down enough to let him, but he’s used to that. He stares into the darkness cycling through every reason he has to get up and leave and eventually settles on a memory that’s still foggy like a dream: a dark room, dank and cold like a secret. He doesn’t remember seeing much else but he remembers a voice, disembodied and distant but clearly his own.  
    “Barnes, James Buchanan. Sergeant. 3-2-5-5-7-0-3-8.”   
    Over and over he heard those words. He knows he said them but in his memories it sounds wrong.  
    He sits up, turning away from Steve and gripping the edge of the mattress. By now he’s used to aching in his limbs after a strenuous mission. Lately he’s become used to the dull ache of sleeping on park benches, or under bridges, or in shop doorways. A good stretch and those will fade. But it’s the phantom pains shooting through his left arm that he can never quite shake. They shouldn’t be there, but they never quite go away.  
    “You ok Buck?” Steve asks. He’s sitting up now too, leaning in close.  
    “Who am I,” Bucky starts. “Who am I to you that you can’t walk away. Close your damn window. Give up.”  
    “You’re Bucky Barnes,” Steve says, carefully snaking an arm around Bucky’s shoulders. “You’re _my_ Bucky. You’ve known me your whole life. You’ve been my best friend since I was nine years old. Most of that time, you’ve been my only friend.”  
    He kisses Bucky’s shoulder.  
    “And you are the one thing I had when I had nothing else. And if you think I’m ever gonna give up on you, remember, you’re the one who taught me how to fight.”  
    Bucky leans back against Steve, dropping his head forward, his hair, long and disheveled, falling in front of his damp eyes.  
    “Who do you think you are to me?” Steve asks.  
    Bucky says nothing for a long time, then whispers, “I think I’m your weakness. I’m the one they knew they could use against you. I’m the one you should’ve left on Zola’s table. It wouldn’t have been much longer.”  
    Steve’s grip on Bucky tightens. He digs his nails into Bucky’s shoulder.  
    “Don’t say that. Don’t _ever_ say that.”  
    Bucky wrenches free of Steve’s grip and stands. In a single, quick motion he snatches up his tattered cargo pants and steps into them.  
    “I need to go,” he says distractedly as he kicks at the pile of clothes they’d tossed haphazardly onto the floor earlier, looking for his shirt. “I need to go.”  
    Steve stands too.   
    “No,” he says simply. It’s enough to give Bucky pause, to make him stop and look, really look, at Steve. It’s a break from their pattern: Steve is supposed to let him go. He’s supposed to give him space, even when it hurts. And he’s supposed to wait for him to come back. This time though, Steve knows implicitly that he’d be waiting an eternity.  
    “No,” he says again, stepping toward Bucky and grabbing his metal hand with both of his own. “Don’t go. Not this time.”  
    Bucky looks down at Steve’s hands clasped around his but he doesn’t pull away. Instead, he lets Steve pull him closer, wrap him in a tight, almost suffocating hug.  
    “Stay,” Steve pleads. “I need you to stay.”  
    Bucky sighs. If he stays this time, it means no more running. It means no escaping the past, no hiding in shadows, and never again being allowed (or made to) forget.  
    If he stays this time, it means forever.  
    Bucky stays.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to the wonderful cloudspanties on Tumblr for the beta read and catching my silly grammar mistakes! I am moderately sorry for any emotional damage caused by this story.


End file.
